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Does anyone knows what is Trello business model? I always enjoy seeing "free forever" but, you know, only a few things really are free.

mattvot 14y ago
Yes, I was going to ask this too. Their tour page says "Trello is free, now and forever.". Call me a skeptic, but I don't see that holding true unless they have some money to keep it running.
- gecko 14y ago
  That would better be phrased as, "any features that are currently free, stay free." Of course we're working on adding paid features to Trello; see spolsky's replies elsewhere in this thread, or my comment history, for more details.
- Kiro 14y ago
  It's created by Fog Creek and I believe their other products bring in enough money to keep Trello free.
  - neilkelty 14y ago
    That leaves no incentive to keep running Trello.
xijuan 14y ago
Oh yeah. I had wondered that too. Maybe they will be like dropbox and Evernote in the future. People can pay money to get the premium version with more features and space.
- gecko 14y ago
  That's not quite what we have in mind, but it's close. Basically, any features that are currently free, stay free. Some new features in the pipe will not be.
spolsky 14y ago
We plan to offer add-on and premium services that might be of use to people who are getting a lot of value out of Trello already. For example you could imagine that large corporations that already have Trello throughout their organization might be happy to pay for centralized administration utilities. (PS I'm the founder of Fog Creek, creator of Trello)
- giulianob 14y ago
  I use Trello and would love to see some basic stats. I've thought about writing something against the API that can output stats such as how long cards are staying in specific columns but I don't have the time to do it right atm.
- rwhitman 14y ago
  Like many folks I've been burned a number of times when I locked into software that was "free forever". Usually not because the software owner put up a paywall, but because the business was found unsustainable and it was either sold or they pulled the plug. I love Trello immensely but the "free forever" aspect worries me about trusting it over the longterm. I've tried to turn my clients onto Trello and have been met with the same skepticism over entrusting an entire business workflow to a free product. Just from a trust perspective, it would honestly put my mind at ease to find out it was making a buck somehow...
  - MarkMc 14y ago
    This was my thought too. Perhaps Trello is one of those strange cases where making the product more restrictive (eg. you must pay to create more than 500 cards) would increase the demand for the product.
- melicerte 14y ago
  Thanks for the quick anwser. Any chance to have a download version anytime? I mean, a pay to download is totally acceptable. I'm asking this from a European points of view as Personal information could be stored into trello and Personal data protection laws in Europe are somehow different and more binding than the US ones.
melicerte 14y ago
Some of us remember the pivotal tracker story...
michokest 14y ago
At Teambox we have a comparable feature set (tasks for teams and files) and we moved to freemium about 2 years ago. While the usual freemium math applies (most users are still free), our customer's response has been phenomenal and subscriptions are now a sustainable business.

mattvot 14y ago

Yes, I was going to ask this too. Their tour page says "Trello is free, now and forever.". Call me a skeptic, but I don't see that holding true unless they have some money to keep it running.

gecko 14y ago
That would better be phrased as, "any features that are currently free, stay free." Of course we're working on adding paid features to Trello; see spolsky's replies elsewhere in this thread, or my comment history, for more details.
Kiro 14y ago
It's created by Fog Creek and I believe their other products bring in enough money to keep Trello free.
- neilkelty 14y ago
  That leaves no incentive to keep running Trello.

xijuan 14y ago

Oh yeah. I had wondered that too. Maybe they will be like dropbox and Evernote in the future. People can pay money to get the premium version with more features and space.

gecko 14y ago
That's not quite what we have in mind, but it's close. Basically, any features that are currently free, stay free. Some new features in the pipe will not be.

spolsky 14y ago

We plan to offer add-on and premium services that might be of use to people who are getting a lot of value out of Trello already. For example you could imagine that large corporations that already have Trello throughout their organization might be happy to pay for centralized administration utilities. (PS I'm the founder of Fog Creek, creator of Trello)

giulianob 14y ago
I use Trello and would love to see some basic stats. I've thought about writing something against the API that can output stats such as how long cards are staying in specific columns but I don't have the time to do it right atm.
rwhitman 14y ago
Like many folks I've been burned a number of times when I locked into software that was "free forever". Usually not because the software owner put up a paywall, but because the business was found unsustainable and it was either sold or they pulled the plug. I love Trello immensely but the "free forever" aspect worries me about trusting it over the longterm. I've tried to turn my clients onto Trello and have been met with the same skepticism over entrusting an entire business workflow to a free product. Just from a trust perspective, it would honestly put my mind at ease to find out it was making a buck somehow...
- MarkMc 14y ago
  This was my thought too. Perhaps Trello is one of those strange cases where making the product more restrictive (eg. you must pay to create more than 500 cards) would increase the demand for the product.
melicerte 14y ago
Thanks for the quick anwser. Any chance to have a download version anytime? I mean, a pay to download is totally acceptable. I'm asking this from a European points of view as Personal information could be stored into trello and Personal data protection laws in Europe are somehow different and more binding than the US ones.

melicerte 14y ago

Some of us remember the pivotal tracker story...

michokest 14y ago

At Teambox we have a comparable feature set (tasks for teams and files) and we moved to freemium about 2 years ago. While the usual freemium math applies (most users are still free), our customer's response has been phenomenal and subscriptions are now a sustainable business.